


Words & moving picture

by friendlifyre



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:35:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26065090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlifyre/pseuds/friendlifyre
Summary: Shadow's early days on the Ark, having a discussion with his creator after Gerald said goodbye to his grandson.
Kudos: 9





	Words & moving picture

**Author's Note:**

> Written sometime in November last year, based on a headcanon that Gerald basically traded Eggman for Shadow, choosing to cut all contacts to keep his creation safe.

“Big boss wants to see you in lab three.” The voice is very recognizable. It’s the top maintenance man - Finlay, if he recalls right. Finlay likes the observatory about as much as he does, he’s come to think, with how often he happens to find something to do here. Finlay always finds some portion of window to clean or some buttons to adjust or some screens to calibrate in this room even if it’s one of the emptiest in the colony. Finlay never delegates the tasks he has to do here to the rest of his team, he always keeps them for himself. Maria says Finlay does good work, that’s why it’s up to him to decide. That’s how everything works here - the people who are the best at what they do are the ones who get to decide what’s best for everyone else. He nods.

“It’s not urgent, though,” Finlay says with his hand held up at him, like he didn’t need to get up so quickly. He stares at the hand, blinks at it. ‘Stop,’ it means, or ‘slow down’ sometimes. ‘Calm down’ when there’s two of them, but there’s only one this time, and it’s already going back down. So, in-between. _You can go now, but you don’t have to_. Not urgent. He nods again, his march towards the exit resumes. _Use your words,_ he pictures the familiar voice. “Okay,” he says just loud enough for Finlay to hear him. The door whooshes open, and closes behind him with the same noise.  


Not urgent, he mulls over, eyes fixed on the ceiling lights, on the line they trace across the hallways like an indication for which path to follow. Urgent means go now, but not urgent does not mean do not go now. It means you can go now but don’t have to. Maybe he should make a list of words that get a different nuance when negated, and not just the opposite meaning. They all say making lists is a good way to remember. Now that they’re letting him go places by himself, do what he likes in his spare time, he’d like to get better at remembering these things. He’d like to.. be able to speak with them, he thinks. Without always having to ask Maria if he understood right.

In the meantime, though, he walks with a hand to the wall, muscle memory telling him where to turn and where to keep going more than the progressively clearer map of the place stored in his brain. He doesn’t look at them when they pass him by. It’s distracting enough to feel their gaze on him, without meeting them with his own. _Focus_ , he remembers. A blessedly straightforward word.

The laboratory is empty. Not the usual ‘people have been coming in and out and there just happens to be no one at the moment’ empty, though. More the ‘there was a research session a short moment ago and everyone effectively packed and cleaned up their station before leaving’ empty. There’s no trace of ‘big boss,’ like Finley called him, or so it seems. He treads into the room slowly, quietly, soft soles rendering his steps remarkably quiet compared to those of hard-footed humans. The smell of disinfectant is a tad overbearing; he crosses the room with a grimace.

Then he hears the voice, and remembers. Lab three is linked to an office, sort of. It’s not really an office, not as much as they wanted it to be. It’s where they stored a lot of communication equipment, so the scientists use it more for that than for an office. The door was left open, and he hears the voice that summoned him here. There’s no other voice he can hear, though. He steps closer.

The man’s back is turned on him, but in front of him there’s a screen with an image on it. The image of someone. Not a picture, though, not really. It glitches in and out, but it seems to be moving. He could swear he remembers the someone from somewhere. He squints. It’s all black and white. He’s never seen that someone otherwise, though. Not really. He remembers. That someone, he’s seen in a picture. A very old picture of the man who created him, when he was… not like this. Younger. The moving picture on the screen looks a lot like that person. Almost identical, but not quite. This one is still moving. And speaking, too. He can hear the other voice now.

A lot of words he hasn’t heard much. Big Cs. Confidential, compromise, chance, classified. The tone is heavy, serious. Sad, he would say, but both voices are too worn to tell for sure. Maybe that’s why he can’t bring himself to step into the office and ask why talk to a picture, why can the picture talk back, why does it look so much like another picture that didn’t move. Many questions he wants to ask. Why do you sound so sad, mostly. But he just waits by the open door. Not urgent, he repeats mentally. He just has to wait for his turn.

‘I’m sorry,’ that he recognizes. He squints, confused. He’s never heard the man apologize before, and to a moving picture, of all things ? A moving picture of someone who looks like his different– his _younger_ self. It doesn’t make sense. The picture disappears, soon after this. The room is plunged into silence. The heavy kind. Even with his back turned, the man looks sad.

He knocks on the open door, recalling the short manners lesson he was briefed through a few days ago. His creator doesn’t react. “You wanted to see me, professor ?” he asks, looking up at the person in question while keeping his head almost bowed. Silence, still, and he glances to the side, considering whether he should leave and return in a moment. “Yes,” the professor responds suddenly. “Good timing. Come in.” He does as he’s told, apologetic expression on his face, but the man doesn’t bother looking his way.  


“There’s something you have to understand,” his creator says, his voice still heavy but more assured than it was an instant prior, and finally turns to face him. Black ears perk up to attention. “You won’t always have time for everyone. Sometimes, to do what is right… you’ll have to make choices. And just hope that the people you let down will be okay on their own.” He squints, trying to commit the words to memory. And tilts his head in confusion, to which the man immediately asks, “Do you understand ?” He nods. “Use your words.”  


“I don’t understand,” he says right away.  


“Don’t nod if you don’t understand.” He nods. “Shadow.”  


“Sorry.” Ears swivel backwards, sheepish. “How do you know which choice to make ?”  


The answer doesn’t come immediately. “That’s the big question. It’ll be up to you to figure out what’s right and wrong. You will learn, in time. Learn to understand what’s best for you, what’s best for others. Know when to listen to your heart, and when to listen to your head.”

“My heart doesn’t speak to me like my head does.”  


The professor laughs. It’s a relief. “That’s just what your head wants you to think.” Another confused look. “Don’t fret. You have a lot of time to make sense of this. Just, remember it, yes ?” He nods. “Words, Shadow.”

“I will.”  


“Thank you.” The man sounds satisfied. That’s a relief, too.  


“Is that why you wanted to see me, professor ?”  


“Well, no, not exactly,” his creator says, heaving something of a sigh before he works up the energy to stand up from his chair and begins pacing towards the exit. “We made a little something for you just over here. Come along.” He nods again, but the professor doesn’t see. So he follows out, though not without glancing back at the black screen again, the one where there was a moving picture a minute ago. He should try to remember this too, he thinks.


End file.
